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Seventy percent of Americans favor having movie theaters list calories on menu boards and 68 percent favor having chain restaurants list calories for alcoholic beverages, according to a poll released by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The survey comes as the Obama Administration is getting ready to release regulations requiring calorie counts at chain restaurants and similar retail food establishments.

A draft of the rule released last year exempted alcoholic beverages, movie theaters, hotels, stadiums, and other venues that sell restaurant-type foods – even though the 2010 law that established calorie labeling included those venues, the center said in a statement.

According to the center’s survey, 77 percent of Americans want calorie labeling for the hot dogs, pizza slices, and burritos available at convenience stores, and 81 percent favor having supermarkets provide calorie information for their prepared restaurant-type foods, such as rotisserie chicken, sandwiches, and soups.

“Americans just want to know what they’re eating,” Margo G. Wootan, said center’s nutrition policy director, said in a statement. “Menu labeling at chain restaurants will be enormously helpful. But it doesn’t make sense to create loopholes for certain companies, when that’s not what Congress intended and it’s not what people want.”

The center says – and many in the restaurant industry agree – that requiring calorie labeling at supermarkets, convenience stores, and movie theaters means similar types of food must be labeled.

“We believe the Proposed Rule arbitrarily and unjustifiably excludes establishments that are not only similar to, but actually function as, restaurants, and that have publicly announced their intention to offer restaurant-type food,” the National Restaurant Association wrote in its comments to the Food and Drug Administration.

In the poll, 55 percent favor calories listed directly on vending machines, and only 34 percent would prefer that information on a poster located near a vending machine. The Administration’s draft rule would allow the latter option, where the information likely would be hard to see while consumers make their choices. The law states that the calorie listings should be on the selection button or next to the foods.

Earlier this month, 21 officials from health organizations, including the chief executive officers of the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association, called for changes to the Obama Administration’s proposed menu labeling regulations. They asked for revisions “to bring them in line with the requirements set forth by Congress and to best serve the needs of the American people.”

Meanwhile, some pizza companies are planning to ask for congressional help in circumventing the new menu labeling law. Under the name of The American Pizza Community, Domino’s, Papa John’s, Little Caesar, and other pizza chains are seeking meetings with members of Congress later in June, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

“First the pizza lobby convinced Congress to legislate that pizza is a vegetable under the school lunch program,” Wootan said. “Now they want an exemption from the calorie labeling rule.”

All of these chains are providing calorie counts in New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle, where it’s been required by local law, she said.

A pizza can have 2,500 or 3,000 calories. A 16-inch Spicy Italian Pizza from Papa John’s has 4,000 calories, according to its website.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..